A Russian government-operated Soyuz will launch the Kanopus-V No. 3 and 4 Earth Observation Satellites into a Sun Synchronous Orbit from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s far east. This will be the third launch from Vostochny after the facility opened for business in 2016. Kanopus represents a constellation of small remote sensing spacecraft, operating alongside the large Resurs satellites that build Russia’s primary civilian Earth observation system, however, both Resurs and Kanopus have some overlap with the military. The Kanopus Satellites host three imaging payloads to capture high-resolution panchromatic images, multi-spectral and hyperspectral data.

The smallest Orbital Launch Vehicle ever flown is aiming for a re-flight mission in December 2017 after an initial launch attempt failed in January of the same year due to a design flaw on the beefed up sounding rocket that explores the feasibility of launch vehicle capable of placing individual CubeSats into orbit. The three-stage SS-520-4 was developed by JAXA to act as a pathfinder for a future Small Satellite Launch Vehicle, conducting a data-gathering exercise to validate the approach of using low-cost sounding rocket technology and simplified launch procedures for a future operational vehicle capable of placing small satellites into orbit.

The long-awaited Falcon Heavy debut is targeting a late 2017 rollout to Launch Complex 39A for final testing ahead of a high-profile liftoff from Florida’s Space Coast. Comprising three Falcon 9 cores, Falcon Heavy hosts a total of 27 engines that fire to lift the vehicle off the ground followed by a period of reduced thrust flight on the central core to extend its burn time. Both side boosters used on the maiden launch are re-used Falcon 9 stages each with one prior operational flight; they will target near-simultaneous landings on two pads at Cape Canaveral’s Landing Zone-1 while the center core will aim for touchdown on the OCISLY Drone Ship.

A Chinese Long March 3B rocket with a Yuanzheng-1 upper stage will lift a pair of Beidou-3 navigation satellites into a 21,500-Kilometer Medium Earth Orbit to join the Compass Navigation Satellite System to support its fully operational capability by the end of the decade. Beidou-3 comprises satellites in Geostationary Orbit, inclined Geosynchronous Orbits and Medium Earth Orbits to provide global coverage and compatibility with China’s previous two navigation system generations.

This is the fourth dual-launch in support of the Beidou-3 MEO generation, involving two CAST-built satellites. It is the second Beidou-3 mission in 2018, expected to become the constellation’s busiest year to date with up to 18 Beidou satellites headed into orbit to bring the constellation to initial operational strength.

A Russian Soyuz 2-1A rocket will be tasked with lifting the Progress MS-08 cargo spacecraft into orbit for a supplies delivery to the International Space Station. Carrying around 2,500kg of cargo, Progress MS-08 is the 161st overall mission of the Russian cargo vehicle since its first flight in 1978 and the 71st to the International Space Station; it is the first of three planned Progress flights of 2018. The mission planned to demonstrate Russia’s new two-orbit rendezvous technique that offers a faster transit time for crews and cargo from their remote Kazakhstan launch pads to their destination in space.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Paz satellite for Madrid-based operator Hisdesat, becoming Spain’s first radar observation satellite as part of the National Earth Observation Program. The satellite is completing a multi-purpose mission, collecting radar imagery for application in national security and defence, civilian applications, science and commercial exploitation. The 1,400-Kilogram satellite carries an X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar capable of delivering imagery at a ground resolution of one meter, capturing around 200 scenes per day. Paz was originally planned to fly on a Dnepr booster, but as the vehicle fell victim to the political conflict between the Ukraine and Russia the mission was moved to a SpaceX Falcon 9 after encountering nearly three years of delays.

A Japanese H-IIA rocket will launch the six optical reconnaissance in Japan’s Information Gathering Satellite System. This is the second in the third generation of optical imaging satellites orbited by the Japanese in a program initiated in 2003 to end reliance on foreign allies provided reconnaissance data to Japan, primarily dedicated to watching over North Korean missile activities.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in a rare expendable mission with a brand new first stage, will lift the Hispasat 30W-6 commercial communications satellite into Geostationary Transfer Orbit for Madrid-based satellite operator Hispasat. Weighing in at 6.1 metric tons, the satellite will require the entirety of Falcon’s performance and not permit the first stage booster to be recovered. Based on SS/L’s 1300 satellite platform, Hispasat 30W-6 hosts a powerful communications payload comprising 48 Ku-band, 6 Ka-band, 1 Ka-BSS and 1 C-band transponder for the provision of the full palette of telecommunications services to Europe, North Africa, and the Americas including television distribution, broadband Internet and corporate networking services.

A Russian Soyuz 2-1v rocket will lift off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome with the experimental EMKA satellite. The mission was originally planned for December 2017 but slipped for unknown reasons. Its payload is identified as a small experimental satellite flying in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk.II will lift the GSAT-6A Communications Satellite into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit. The 2,100-Kilogram GSAT-6A joins a series of satellites for multi-media and mobile applications, hosting a payload comprising five C-by-S and five S-by-C-Band transponders optimized for Satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcasting. The satellite’s capacity can also be used for strategic and social applications.

A “Europeanized” Soyuz rocket will launch from the Guiana Space Center with the third set of O3b satellites joining a constellation of telecommunications satellites placed into an 8,063-Kilometer orbit above the equator to deliver low-latency data services to the developing world. O3b stands for “the other three billion” in reference to the world’s population that can not connect to the Internet through conventional means; it is operated by O3b Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of SES S.A. Outfitted with a Fregat upper stage, Soyuz will directly deliver the four 700-Kilogram satellites into their checkout orbit over the equator.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the GOES-S weather satellite for NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as the second in an upgraded generation of Geostationary Meteorological Satellites, delivering critical data for weather now- and forecasting. Built by Lockheed Martin, the 5,200-Kilogram satellite hosts the Advanced Baseline Imager capturing 16-channel imaging and atmospheric sounding data, a Lightning Mapper, space environment sensors and solar instruments – delivering all necessary parameters for terrestrial and space weather assessments. Two active GOES satellites are required for coverage of the entire contiguous United States and the Atlantic and Pacific Regions of interest for U.S. weather forecasting.

Event Details

Launch Date:

March 15, 2018

Launch Window:

TBA

Launch Vehicle:

Long March 3B/G2

Launch Operator:

CALT/CGWIC

Launch Site:

LC2, Xichang Satellite Launch Center

Payload:

APStar-6C

Satellite Type:

Communications

A Chinese Long March 3B rocket will launch the APStar-6C commercial communications satellite for APT Satellite Company Ltd under an end-to-end contract signed with China Great Wall Industry Corp. (CGWIC) for the construction of the satellite and its launch on a Chinese rocket. Based on the DFH-4 satellite platform, the satellite will host a hybrid payload comprising C, Ku, and Ka-Band payloads to deliver VSAT, video distribution, Direct-to-home television and cellular backhaul to the Asia-Pacific Region.

A Russian Soyuz FG rocket will launch the crewed Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft into orbit for a same-day rendezvous with the International Space Station to bring the Expedition 55/56 crew to their orbital home and workplace for a half-year mission. Russia’s trusted Soyuz FG rocket will operate for nine minutes to deliver the spacecraft into a 200-Kilometer orbit from where it will maneuver up into the Station’s orbit of 400 Kilometers for a fully automated link-up. The 7,200-Kilogram Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft will remain docked to the Poisk Module throughout the crew’s stay on ISS to act as life boat and return them to Earth at the end of their flight via parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan.

Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket will launch the DSN-1 and Hylas 4 telecommunications satellites into Geostationary Transfer Orbit for operators Intelsat and Japan’s SKY Perfect JSAT and DSN Corporation. DSN-1 joins the Japanese DSN constellation comprising two Geostationary Satellites providing secure communications capacity in X-Band for use by the Japanese government and armed forces. Part of DSN-1’s payload, designated Superbird 8, comprises Ku and Ka-Band transponders for commercial use. Hylas 4, built by Orbital ATK, is high-throughput broadband communications satellites delivering 28 GHz of capacity via 66 fixed Ka-Band beams positioned over Africa and Europe with four steerable beams that can service additional markets in Africa and Latin America.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch ten Iridium-NEXT mobile communications satellites into Low Earth Orbit in the continued effort to replace the entire heritage Iridium constellation with upgraded satellites supporting global communications, aeronautical monitoring and ship tracking. This is the fifth launch in support of Iridium-NEXT by SpaceX and the first of four Iridium missions planned in 2018 to finish deployment of the operational constellation of 75 satellites, all missions are using Falcon 9 launchers. Iridium-5 will re-use a previously flown Falcon 9, first launched on the Iridium-3 mission.

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, flying in its XL configuration, will launch the IRNSS-1I Navigation Satellite into a sub-Geostationary Transfer Orbit to replenish the country’s Navic Regional Navigation Satellite System. This launch follows up on the 2017 Failure of the PSLV rocket lifting the IRNSS-1H satellite originally intended to replace the first satellite in the seven-satellite constellation which has lost its atomic clocks due to a design flaw and left the system without redundancy. Spiraling up into Geosynchronous Orbit, the satellite will replace IRNSS-1A and restore the constellation to full capacity.

An air-launched Pegasus XL rocket operated by Orbital-ATK will launch NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) to begin a study of Earth’s ionosphere, a vitally important region when attempting to understand the dynamics between Earth’s atmosphere and solar weather. ICON sets out to reveal the mechanisms of ionospheric disturbances caused by solar storms or terrestrial weather activity in the upper atmosphere which can have implications on the operation of satellites and the propagation of radio waves.

The L-1011 aircraft carrying the Pegasus XL rocket will take off from the Kawajalein Atoll and send the vehicle onto an ascent over the Pacific Ocean to deploy the 291-Kilogram spacecraft is be deployed into a circular orbit 575 Kilometers in altitude, inclined 27°. Staging operations (spacecraft processing, launch vehicle assembly) will take place at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Delayed Indefinitely due to Launcher Issues:

NASA is postponing launch of the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) until 2018. The mission was previously planned to launch Dec. 8, 2017, on an Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. NASA and Orbital ATK need additional time to assess a separation component of the rocket. More information on a revised launch date will be provided once it becomes available.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the 14th operational Dragon cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station on the company’s first mission under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services Program in 2018. Dragon SpX-14 is part of an extension to the original CRS-1 contract to bridge a gap to the second CRS contract round. The SpX-14 mission will carry International Docking Adapter 3 or the Robotic Refueling Mission 3 as external payloads (Decision still outstanding). The Falcon 9 first stage will attempt a Return to Launch Site recovery via a powered landing in Cape Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1.

A Russian government-operated Proton-M rocket with Briz-M upper stage will launch the second of four planned Blagovest dual-use communications satellites. Blagovest builds a high-throughput communications constellation featuring powerful payloads operating in Ka-Band and the innovative Q-Band to support data-intensive communications in the civilian and military sectors. The satellites are used for high-speed Internet services, TV distribution, radio broadcasting and voice/video networking. This will be the fifth Proton launch in 2017 as the vehicle slowly makes its way back to old strengths after struggling with reliability over the last several years.

A Russian Rockot Booster – a converted UR-100N ballistic missile topped by a Briz-KM upper stage – will launch the Sentinel-3B satellite operated by ESA under the European Commission’s Copernicus Earth Observation Program that sets out to deploy a number of differently-instrumented satellites to collect a comprehensive set of Earth observation parameters for use in various sectors. The Sentinel-3 satellites are the most-heavily instrumented satellites flying under Copernicus, hosting four instruments to deliver accurate data on land and ocean color and topography as well as sea and land surface temperature with a rapid global revisit time and fast data availability for use in operational applications.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the Air Force Space Command 11 mission for the U.S. Air Force, utilizing the heavy-lift Atlas V 551 configuration with five Solid Rocket Boosters on the vehicle’s first stage. The AFSPC 11 mission will fly an as-of-yet undisclosed primary payload and a number of secondary payloads hosted on the ESPA Augmented Geostationary Laboratory Experiment (EAGLE), led by the Air Force Research Lab with Orbital ATK as prime contractor. EAGLE uses an ESPA Adapter with deployable solar arrays, Moog propulsion module and five slots for Space Test Program-sponsored payloads that will conduct a series of technology demonstrations.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch five Iridium-NEXT mobile communications satellites and a pair of gravity-sensing satellites into Low Earth Orbit on a shared ride between Iridium Communications and GRACE-FO operators GFZ and NASA. SpaceX has been contracted to deploy 75 Iridium-NEXT satellites with deployment occurring in batches of ten, meaning one Falcon 9 would fly with half a load, leaving surplus performance for a co-passenger. The two GRACE Follow-On Satellites are flying as an extension of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment that has been tracking Earth’s gravitational field since 2002 and is headed into retirement in late 2017. GRACE shows how mass is distributed around the planet and its variation over time, allowing for modeling of Earth’s oceans, geology and climate.

The Iridium satellites are headed to orbit in the continued effort to replace the entire heritage Iridium constellation with upgraded satellites supporting global communications, aeronautical monitoring and ship tracking.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) – the next-generation exoplanet hunter designed to detect planets from Earth’s size to the largest gas giants orbiting stars outside our Solar System. Built by Orbital ATK, the 350-Kilogram TESS hosts an array of telescopes designed for an all-sky survey focused the nearest 200 Light Years from Earth to identify exoplanet candidates via transit photometry for future observation by other telescopic assets like JWST. The relatively compact spacecraft will operate from a lunar resonance orbit of 17 by 59 Earth Radii.

Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket, embarking on its third flight of 2018, will lift the GSAT-11 and Intelsat 38 communications satellites into Geostationary Transfer Orbit. GSAT-11 is India’s largest and most-powerful communications satellite to date, weighing 5,725 Kilograms and utilizing the new I-6K satellite platform designed for satellites in the six-metric-ton class. The satellite hosts 40 transponders operated in Ka/Ku-Band to provide high-throughput communication services with a total throughput of 10 Gbps. Intelsat 38 / Azerspace-2, built by Space Systems Loral, will be operated by Intelsat and Azercosmos OJSCo to provide continuity of services for the Intelsat 12 satellite and expand Azercosmos services in the area of DTH and networking services over capacity currently available via Azerspace-1.

An Orbital ATK Antares rocket will lift the ninth operational Cygnus cargo resupply spacecraft into orbit for a mission to the International Space Station. The OA-9 mission will carry over three metric tons of cargo to the International Space Station as the first of two planned Orbital-ATK resupply missions in 2018 under an extension to the original Commercial Resupply Services contract to bridge a gap until CRS-2 enters operations. The Antares rocket will be flying in its upgraded 230 configuration with a pair of RD-181 engines powering its first stage and a Castor 30XL acting as second stage to lift the 6,200-Kilogram spacecraft into orbit.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch NASA’s InSight mission on a trajectory for landing on Mars in November 2018 to begin a mission of at least two years using a suite of instruments to study the planet’s interior to better understand the processes the shaped the rocky planets of the solar system, including our own. The mission has the full name of “Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport” and employs the overall design of the 2008 Phoenix Mars Lander with a payload suite comprising a high-fidelity seismometer, a self-penetrating heat-flow probe and a rotation and interior structure experiment. InSight is targeting a landing in Elysium Planitia.

The InSight Mission was delayed from the 2016 interplanetary launch window due to a critical fault discovered on the lander’s primary seismic instrument. To send InSight on its way, Atlas V will be flying in its basic 401 configuration without boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.

A Russian Soyuz FG rocket will launch the crewed Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft into orbit for a same-day rendezvous with the International Space Station to bring the Expedition 55/56 crew to their orbital home and workplace for a half-year mission. Carrying an international crew trio from the U.S., Russia and Germany, the trusted Soyuz FG rocket will operate for nine minutes to deliver the spacecraft into a 200-Kilometer orbit from where it will maneuver up into the Station’s orbit of 400 Kilometers for a fully automated link-up. The 7,200-Kilogram Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft will remain docked to the Rassvet Module throughout the crew’s stay on ISS to act as life boat and return them to Earth at the end of their flight via parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan.

Event Details

Event Details

Launch Date:

June 6, 2018

Launch Window:

TBA

Launch Vehicle:

Falcon 9 FT

Launch Operator:

SpaceX

Launch Site:

Cape Canaveral, Florida

Payload:

Dragon SpX-15

Payload Manufacturer:

SpaceX under NASA’s CRS Program

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the 15th operational Dragon cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station on the company’s second mission under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services Program in 2018. Dragon SpX-15 is part of an extension to the original CRS-1 contract to bridge a gap to the second CRS contract round. The SpX-15 mission will carry the ECOSTRESS Instrument (Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station) and a spare Latching End Effector for Canadarm2 as external payloads. The Falcon 9 first stage will attempt a Return to Launch Site recovery via a powered landing in Cape Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1.

A Russian Soyuz 2-1A rocket will be tasked with lifting the Progress MS-09 cargo spacecraft into orbit for a supplies delivery to the International Space Station. Progress MS-09 is the 162nd overall mission of the Russian cargo vehicle since its first flight in 1978 and the 72nd to the International Space Station; it is the second of three planned Progress flights in 2018. Typical Progress missions carry approximately 2,500 Kilograms of cargo to ISS comprised of refueling propellants, water, pressurized gases and dry cargo including food, experiments, maintenance gear and crew supplies.